Second Nature
by rukushaka
Summary: The embodiment of HYDRA is the alien entity Hive, currently wearing the skin of Grant Ward. The embodiment of SHIELD? The very human Phil Coulson. When Giyera hijacks the plane, Phil wakes to find himself handcuffed to a chair, location unknown, with his prosthetic hand missing. Hive just wants to talk. Or does he? Nature Series #4
1. Coulson

**Second Nature (** ** _Nature_** **Series #4)**

4 chapters, total 12k words.

Set after _3.16: Paradise Lost_ and into the early scenes of _03.17: The Team_.

 ** _Second Nature:_** _noun; a habit or mode of behaviour so long practiced that it seems innate._

* * *

 _Coulson_

* * *

Phil Coulson doesn't wake slowly. Consciousness crashes into him like a truck, fast and loud and painful. The status check comes automatically, a rolling line of

 _what?_ Giyera took the plane

 _how?_ telekinetic superpowers, greeaaat

 _where?_ heading for Schoonebeek oilfield

 _why?_ bad guy cliches, intel, who knows

 _who?_ he took the team he took the team he took the team…

Experienced agents know not to open their eyes the split-second they wake up. There's a lot that can be deduced from sound and air temperature and subtle finger-wriggling without having to give away your main advantage, to wit, the fact that you're awake and your enemy doesn't know it yet.

More experienced agents usually open their eyes anyway. Especially if they think they're in a new location. Touch and smell and taste and hearing are all very well, but sight confers the biggest advantage of all: you can actually see a) where you are, b) if there's anyone in the room with you, and c) how imminent your death is.

Result vary from _I'm alone in a field of sunflowers somewhere in the south of France, everything is great_ to _expletive that's a giant wall of fire, how am I not dead from smoke inhalation? No time, got to go. Oh hello, six goons with guns. I hope you have even half a sense of self-preservation between you._

Not to mention the fact that you don't have as much of an advantage as you think you do, because what with involuntary muscle movements, heart rate changes, and a hundred other tiny indicators, anyone in the room with you probably already knows you're awake.

Phil's at even more of a disadvantage than _that._ His arms are clamped behind his back — tied to a chair frame? maybe — and he can feel the conspicuous lack of weight below his left elbow. Anyone watching will have seen the artificial nerve connections twitching in the port. It's been nearly a year since the _Iliad_ and Gordon, but he's still working on the finer points of, ha, motor control.

So he opens his eyes.

And does his best not to flinch when he finds Hive, in the body of former agent Grant Ward, staring back at him from a distance of two feet.

He's not sure how successful he is.

Hive smiles, deep and slow. "Good evening."

Evening? It was late morning — in the target time zone, at least — when Giyera broke custody. How long has he been out?

And does it matter? It may not even be the truth. Hive and Satan seem to be locked in a feedback loop of myth and legend, each feeding into each other. Everyone knows the devil is a liar.

Sure, humans are liars too, but that's not the point.

"Is it?" Phil asks calmly. He glances around the room, projecting _unruffled_ and _relaxed_ as loudly as he can _._ Hive will probably see through that in no time. Even Ward would have seen through it, toward the end.

But all the same, he's not about to drop the mask this soon.

No matter how much his skin is trying to crawl off his bones and hide in a corner somewhere.

"Yes," Ward — Hive — says. "It is a _very_ good evening."

"Why's that?" The room is small enough. Maybe ten metres by ten metres. Blank surfaces. White tiles underfoot, concrete slab walls, dark ceiling. Cameras wink at him from the two corners he can see. Without twisting his head to look behind him, he can't prove it, but he's willing to bet there are cameras in the other two corners of the ceiling, too.

"It's a live video feed," says Hive, clearly answering the unspoken question of _what's with the cameras_ rather than the one Phil said out loud. "The signal is going… _everywhere_. We're on Youtube. Facebook. In government servers. On the DarkNet. On every SHIELD and HYDRA screen across the planet."

That has to be the stupidest empty threat Phil's ever heard. "Of course we are." He doesn't even try to hide the sarcasm.

"It's the truth."

"Right." He doesn't believe the… thing… at all. But Ward's face is looking at him with unexpectedly childlike disappointment, and that can't be a good sign. Goosebumps erupt down his spine. Maybe he'll humour the monster. For now. "Okay, say you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Hive says. It doesn't say it boastfully. Just a statement of fact.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Apart from the fact that you've just hamstrung both of us, figuratively speaking, in the things we can and can't talk about? It doesn't give you an advantage here. You're not about to admit what you are on international television." He may not know much, but he knows that much. Tipping his hand that earlier… nah. Hive's in it for the long game.

"Perhaps not. But neither are you." Hive turns, hands clasped behind its back, and starts pacing up and down. It's very Shakespearean in a Loki sort of way. Phil would be impressed if he wasn't so hindbrain-terrified. "Perhaps," Hive goes on slowly, "I simply wanted to see how you would react. What you would say."

Phil goes to spread his hands and comes up short. Dammit. Arms clamped to the chair behind him, that's right. Around his biceps _and_ his one remaining forearm. His shoulders will be feeling the strain before too long. He'll manage.

And _dammit,_ he can't swear out loud. Not that he really believes it's a live feed, but if he's trying to sell Hive the story that he believes it… he can't swear when there are kids watching. Listening. Whatever.

"Well," Phil says, "now you know. Happy?"

Hive's smile lingers, entirely devoid of emotion; nothing more than the movement of muscle and skin across tendon and bone. There's no meaning to it. It's an Uncanny Valley in the worst way, a _thing_ trying to mimic human behaviour. Phil's read classic science fiction. It's like the managed corpse, the bogey, the Un-man on Perelandra, but _so much worse_ because Ward was dead.

Phil murdered him.

And now he's back.

No. Ward's body is back. But the thing inside it… the thing inside Ward's body is not Ward.

Looking into its eyes is like trying to stare down a black hole. It's dark and cold and empty and Phil's goosebumps are sprouting goosebumps of their own.

Even in the worst days of the Bahrain fallout, May was more human than this.

He can't wait to get out of here.

Unfortunately, that doesn't look like happening anytime soon.

Ward's body tilts its head at him. "Why SHIELD?"

Phil blinks, affecting quiet bafflement on a Remus Lupin level. "SHIELD is dead." Officially, at least.

And speaking of _officially dead,_ so is he. That's going to be awkward if the cameras really are live.

"Are you not the Director of SHIELD?"

"SHIELD is _dead,_ " he repeats. The layer of shabby confusion cracks, letting the anger show underneath.

Layers upon layers, that's all this is. He's been in the business so long, it's second nature by now.

But just because they're masks doesn't mean they're not _him._

It's not hard to dredge up the memory of the day SHIELD fell, the stunned shock and the confusion and the scramble for intel and supplies and sheer _survival,_ and let it leach through into his voice. "SHIELD fell when Hydra came out of the woodwork, you of all people should know that."

"Interesting." Hive blinks at him, the movement far too slow to be convincingly human. "You're saying you're _not_ Phil Coulson, Director of SHIELD?"

"Correct." If he has to give up either himself or SHIELD to the possibly-nonexistent gaze of the entire planet, it sure as hell isn't going to be SHIELD. He's not going to throw the company under the bus. Himself, on the other hand… "I'm an advisor for the Advanced Threat Containment Unit. You might remember their former head. Rosalind Price."

"I do remember her." Behind Ward's dead eyes, something older than galaxies laughs at him. "A fine woman."

"Yes. She was."

"A fine rival."

Rival? That's… unexpected. "Oh? You're opposing the ATCU now, are you?"

"I oppose everyone." Again, the words aren't a boast. They're emotionless. Implacable. The statement of a fact as undeniable and unstoppable as the rising tide.

All tides rise.

And all tides fall.

"Then I guess," Phil says, borrowing a bit of Natasha's sly mockery and a bit of Clint's lazy drawl, "I'll just have to oppose _you._ "

"I thought you already had."

He'd be a fool not to hear the double meaning in the words. Two can play at that game. "Yes and no." Because he has opposed Grant Ward — to the death and, it appears, to beyond death. But he's never met Hive before. Until now.

He's kinda wishing he hadn't met it at all.

But then, if wishes were horses…

"So you're not affiliated with SHIELD?" Hive asks.

"Can't be affiliated with something that doesn't exist."

"Answer the question."

"I just did. Or are you not smart enough to know what I'm saying without me spelling it out for you?"

Hive lifts his gaze meditatively to the ceiling. "Your aircraft is out there. With your team on board."

The threat is implicit. Phil lets his face close over. "No," he says. "I am not affiliated with SHIELD."

"But you _are_ Phil Coulson?"

Here's hoping Audrey Nathan isn't watching. "Of course I'm Phil Coulson. Who else would I be? Unless I'm actually an evil robot version of Phil Coulson. But I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was. So. No. I'm me. Phil Coulson. Hi."

A spark of ancient, mocking amusement lights Hive's eye. "Hello."

"And what do I call you?" He's honestly not sure of the etiquette here. What _should_ he call his team's former combat specialist who betrayed them, murdered dozens of people including Eric Koenig and Victoria Hand, tortured Bobbi Morse, and assassinated Rosalind Price; who Phil once called friend, then traitor, asset-in-the-basement, temporary ally, enemy, and finally target before murdering him with his bare cybernetic hand; and whose reanimated body is now playing host to a centuries-old demonic entity who appears to be the literal embodiment of Hydra itself?

Hive pauses for a long moment, head tilted.

Phil holds his gaze.

The change is so sudden it stirs nausea in his gut.

One second Hive looks at him through Ward's eyes, dispassionate and — _sorry, Daisy_ — inhuman. The next second it's Grant Ward standing there, obnoxious smirk playing about his lips. "Coulson," he says, and — oh, Phil _really_ hates him now — spreads his hands innocently. "I'm not one of your agents anymore. Haven't been for a long time, I know, I lost that privilege. Honestly, I'm not sorry. It was a drag. I understand that you can't call me _Agent._ But please, call me Grant."

"I don't think so," Phil says. There was enough grease in that speech to rival a particularly bad visit to McDonalds. But it's _Ward,_ the slimeball, superficially smooth and charming as ever. Except it's not. The skin at the back of his neck prickles, tension coiling in his gut. Just because he can't _see_ Hive doesn't mean it's not there. "Ward," he adds. Just to be clear where they stand.

Or sit, in his case.

"Look," says Ward. He crouches down, putting himself at Phil's eye level. But he stays safely out of kicking range, more's the pity. Even though Phil's legs are clamped to the chair. "I'm — "

" _Don't you dare_."

Ward stops. Frowns a little. "What? Oh!" The frown clears. "No, it's nothing to do with _that._ "

It'd better not be. If he even _thinks_ the words Phil thinks he was about to say…

"No," Ward says, "I was going to say, I'm sorry I sold you guys out — "

The hell? "No, you're not."

" — but you of all people should understand why I did it."

Phil stares at him, incredulous. "I — _what?_ "

"You understand, don't you?" Ward licks his lips, and _don't fall for it, Phil, he's a spy just like you are, you can't bring him back from this, it's not Ward,_ for a moment he looks so much younger, so much more innocent. It would be easy to ignore the blood on his hands. "Please tell me you understand."

"No," Phil says bluntly. "But please. Enlighten me."

"SHIELD was your family. Once, years ago, you had Strike Team Delta. Barton and Romanov, your lost boy and your broken girl. And you fixed them, because that's what you do." Ward's eyes are cold. Cold like the dead of winter, cold like the Arctic Sea. "And then you had us. Ward. The lost boy. And May. The broken girl."

He nearly chokes. Ward did _not_ just say that. "Don't let May hear you say that. She'll do more than fracture your larynx this time."

"And you wanted us to be like them," Ward continues, as if Phil hadn't spoken. "To look to you as a father, a brother, a mentor, a blinding light of everything good and pure and holy in a world of darkness."

Phil shakes his head, bereft of words. He hadn't realised Ward was _this_ delusional.

Clint's his brother, sure. Ward, if he hadn't been, well, _Ward_ , might have become something of a son.

Natasha's his sister, yes. May is… not.

"But I already had a father." Ward's eyes gleam. Sanity, in its own way, can be worse than madness. "John Garrett. He saved me and — I owe you, Coulson, I know. And SHIELD itself, I owe SHIELD a lot. But I owed him _everything._ "

"John Garrett," says Phil deliberately, "was a psychotic, back-stabbing son of a — "

"Please don't." Ward rocks back on his heels and rises to stand. "I just wanted you to understand. Why I did it. All of it."

 _Gibbets and crows,_ Phil thinks distantly, and nods. "I understand."

"Good."

"I understand that you'll never take responsibility for your own actions. For the blood on your hands. I understand that you'll always have someone else to blame — your parents, your S.O., my leadership, maybe, I don't know, who cares — it'll never be _your fault_ , right? You're the victim. The tragic hero of the story. Everyone turns on you, everything bad happens _to you_. But not _because_ of you, huh? Has it never occurred to you that maybe you're bringing it on yourself? That _you're_ the cause of everyone turning against you?"

Ward shrugs, unconcerned. "No," he says. "Because it's not. Stop trying to manipulate me, Coulson. It won't work."

"Manipulate you?" Phil barks a laugh. "Looks like I don't have to. You're doing that just fine all on your lonesome."

Ward looks away and cricks his neck —

Phil's stomach drops as the goosebumps return in full force, and he slams his guard back up just in time —

And Hive looks back. Somehow it appears taller than Ward's six-foot-one. "I hope that was sufficient enlightenment."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. _Stupid_. "In a manner of speaking," Phil says, heart jumping in his chest. He's got the company man mask firmly in place. It's the quickest to hand. Default. Reflex. Carefully veiled double-meanings, red tape, misinformation, all wrapped in a sharp-dressed bureaucratic shell that can be comically incompetent or terrifyingly efficient by turns.

Hive jerks its head in a sharp movement. It almost looks like… impatience? It's a bad look on Ward. Doubly so on the centuries-old _thing_ in his body. "I'm afraid we don't have time for games," it says softly.

Phil throws a long look at the nearest camera and looks back at Hive. " _I'm_ afraid we don't have much choice."

"You don't want to make me angry."

"Seriously?"

Hive twitches. It looks like an out-of-body experience. It might actually _be_ an out-of-body experience.

It also looks disgusting.

"I lied," it says. "They're not recording live to Youtube and Facebook and everywhere else."

"Gosh," says Phil. "Really? You totally had me fooled. _Totally._ "

"They're on a closed loop. Feeding through to your aircraft, and through that to every SHIELD screen and server in the world."

"Nice try."

"They're also going to our servers here. So my men can see the Director of SHIELD completely at my mercy."

"Again: nice try."

Hive considers him for a moment. "They call me Hive," it says. "Alveus. Death. It. The first Inhuman. I am of Maveth."

"Phil Coulson. Wisconsin."

"Before that, many centuries ago, I was of Earth. A human. The Kree took me. Tortured me. Transformed me. Changed me into… what I am now." He turns to the camera. Bows. Turns back. "I would not tell that to anyone who was unworthy of hearing it. Does that reassure you?"

"No," says Phil. But he can see as well as anyone the way things are going. He heaves a put-upon sigh. "Fine. Yeah. Go ahead. Why not? It's bound to be better than you monologuing at me."

Hive smiles a very faint and empty smile. "Excellent. Tell me." Its head tilts. "Why SHIELD?"


	2. May

**Second Nature (** ** _Nature_** **Series #4)**

Set after _3.16: Paradise Lost_ and into the early scenes of _03.17: The Team_.

 ** _Second Nature:_** _noun; a habit or mode of behaviour so long practiced that it seems innate._

* * *

2\. _May_

* * *

"Why SHIELD?" Phil repeats. "Because thirty years ago, Nick Fury showed up and asked me to join. And I said yes. That's why."

Hive shakes its head. That sneaking disappointment shows in its eyes again. "That isn't what I meant. Come on, Coulson. Or should I call you Hand? Fury? Carter?"

Oh, that has to be bad news. This hell-beast thinks Phil's the same type of creature as it? Some sort of, of _parasite_ , shifting from host body to host body, gathering strength however it can? More than that, though: shifting from Director of SHIELD to Director of SHIELD, passing down the lineage like an internal badge of office? That's… okay, frankly, that's _disgusting_.

Simmons had told them as much as she could about Hive, both from what Will Daniels had told her and what she'd observed herself on Maveth. Fitz told them more. He put months of research into the subject after Jemma came back, and months more after Fitz himself returned from the death world with Phil in tow. It wasn't just those two, of course. The team pitched in. A judicious tip from Luther Banks before he died helped immensely. From Hydra's current guise to Distant Star to Johann Schmidt, and further back to medieval rituals and the Monolith and the Kree… it's all far older and far more complicated than anyone would guess. And it's bad news to the bottom of the barrel.

Being trapped in a room for a so-far-civil conversation with a centuries-old demonic entity, even one wearing Grant Ward's skin, is one thing.

The demonic entity seeing Phil as a Gandalf to its Saruman, a Holmes to its Moriarty, a Michael to its Lucifer… as an _equal?_ That's another thing entirely.

His stomach drops. But he doesn't let a hint of dread show in his voice or on his face. "That's not how our leadership works."

"Isn't it?" Hive asks.

"No."

"Are you so sure?"

"Yes," says Phil. "Seriously? Do I look like a six-foot-tall black dude to you? Or an English woman from the 1940's?"

Hive lifts an eyebrow. "Do I look like Will Daniels? Brubaker? Malick? Manzini? No. But I have their memories. I am them, as they are me."

Wait, what? "Malick? Like Gideon Malick?"

"Yes." Hive lifts its head to stare past Phil. It smiles. "You don't know. Now that is interesting."

Ugh. He'll bite. "What don't I know?"

It taps its temple. "Malick, yes. Nathaniel Malick. Gideon's younger brother."

"The monolith ate him, too?"

"In a manner of speaking," Hive says, parroting Phil's words back at him with no more than a faint trace of mockery. "The family is deeply entrenched. They made a religion out of it. There was a ritual. Far more complex than it needed to be. Nathaniel, he… I was going to say he volunteered. But that's not quite true either."

"Let me guess. Whatever the ritual was, he won it."

"Some would say he lost." Hive lowers its gaze and resumes pacing. "He was no true believer. Not until he arrived on Maveth. Gideon, however… yes, Gideon believes. Which, of course, was why he let his brother take the fall."

Phil frowns. "If he believes, wouldn't he _want_ to meet you?"

"No. He is a coward. Or a wise man, perhaps." It meets Phil's eyes, gaze smooth and dark as the surface of still water at night, and chilling to the bone. "One shouldn't call upon demons unless one means what one says."

 _Oh, help._

Somewhere in the back of Phil's mind, in the overlap between his mother's faith and his father's history books, words form in a stumbling whisper. He's not fool enough to deny what's in front of his eyes.

Natasha murmurs in his memory. " _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ "

Clint joins her. " _Conviction, Coulson. Look after yourself._ "

And then the voice in Phil's head is only his own, breathing too fast, too loud, shaking with fear and horror. Underneath, though, is a layer of steel. _"In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…"_

He's not sure why he goes for Latin. It's not like a creature named Alveus won't know the language. He could as easily be saying _Our Father_ as _Pater Noster._ It's the same words. The same meaning.

And yet.

Latin just feels _right._ Somehow. He doesn't know how Hive takes over his hosts, he doesn't think he _wants_ to know, but it can't hurt to be prepared. They were all taught mental static techniques at the Academy. Guarding his mind against a creature as old as Hive calls for a language just as old.

Except Hive is probably older than Latin. Oh well.

And to think Clint laughed at him. _You're showing your age, Overwatch. You know Latin's a dead language, right?_

Yeah, well, Ward's a dead man, but he's standing right in front of Phil.

"Grant Ward wasn't a believer either," says Grant Ward's body. "He never pretended to be. There was a simplicity, an honesty in a way, in what he wanted."

"He wanted to save his own skin," Phil says bluntly.

"Yes. But Grant had another purpose as well."

He hadn't been subtle about it. "Skye."

"Skye," Hive confirms. "And then Kara. To be with the woman he loved."

And look at how far he'd gone to achieve that. Maybe Ward was the Anakin to Phil's Kenobi after all. "Good job."

"There's no need for sarcasm."

"Isn't there? Skye would rather shoot him than look at him, and I mean that quite literally. And Kara? He killed Kara himself." Damn. Definitely more Anakin parallels there than he'd thought.

"And then you killed Ward," Hive says.

Yeah, no. They're not going there. _Phil's_ not going there, not with creepy Zombie-Alien-Ward. "Why did you call me Hand? Fury? Carter? That's not how SHIELD's leadership works. We're not like you."

"You," says Hive softly, "are far more like me than you know, Phillip Coulson."

Phil blinks up at it, bland smile firmly in place. Hive doesn't need to know that his heart's thundering in his chest. "Do tell."

"Coulson. Hand. Fury. The last directors of SHIELD. Those names? They're not a coincidence." He looks at Phil indulgently, like Phil's a misbehaving child who got caught sneaking cookies out of the jar. "I mean, Victoria _Hand,_ really? A coincidence? Even you couldn't believe that."

 _Nothing feels normal because nothing will feel normal._

The port at the end of his left arm whirs and settles. Somewhere far outside his physical body, the old hand throbs in phantom pain.

"It's a common enough surname," Phil says. "And a common injury. Better to lose a hand than a life."

"Common?" A Ward-like gleam of sardonicism flashes for an instant through Hive's eyes. "Only 10,000 people on your entire _planet_ have the surname Hand. Nineteen hundred in the United States of America. It's most prevalent in England, with the most density on the Isle of Man. That isn't what I would call common."

"And the arm?"

"Below-elbow amputations of the left hand… There are 350,000 people in the United States with reported amputations. 30% of them have upper limb loss, 10% of _them_ are missing hand and wrist, and 60% of _that_ group have a trans-radial amputation. Again, the numbers aren't in your favour."

Phil allows a tinge of incredulity to slip through the amiable mask. "You really think that Victoria Hand had something to do with my missing hand?"

"I don't think. I know."

"She was never officially a director. We didn't have time to swear her into office before Ward murdered her. And speaking of directors in the last thirty years _,_ you've missed one. Not just one — the _most important one._ So… nice theory, bro, but no cigar."

Hive doesn't look noticeably disappointed. It doesn't look noticeably _anything_. "It doesn't matter that it was never made official. Her authority was recognised, not just as Senior Agent In Charge but as _de facto_ Director. She was in the lineage."

"And our missing director? Ward wasn't around then. Maybe you've got holes in your intel. And let me tell you, that's a bad thing for the head of an intelligence agency to have."

Hive cocks its head. "I'm afraid I don't… oh. Regency Protocol?"

It seems to be expecting a response. Phil doesn't give it the courtesy.

"After Grant assassinated your Ms. Price?"

Stonewalling isn't the most effective reverse-interrogation technique. And _that_ question _,_ Phil can answer. "She wasn't mine," he says, voice level. "People aren't possessions. Not even — especially not — for something like you."

"Of course not," It says, all suave urbanity on the surface and shark-infested reefs below. "They want freedom. We can give them that."

"Freedom from what? Because freedom from free will — that's not freedom."

Hive waves that aside with a careless hand. "Grant didn't think you'd do it. Enact Regency Protocol. He wanted you alive and hurting, yes, but he needed you in charge, too."

"He tried to kill me."

"With a ten-man ground assault team? That wasn't a serious attempt. He was just… putting you through your paces, so to speak."

 _So to speak_ clearly meant _so Ward had said_. "Can't have it both ways. Either I'm in charge or I'm dead." _…et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris…_ "But he never was the most logical guy."

"He was a suffering soul."

"And you liberated him, I suppose."

"No. You did."

 _Damn._

"In a way he was grateful for that," Hive continues. "Grateful for the cessation of a painful, confused existence. And his memory lives on."

"Literally," Phil says, deadpan. "As does his body. Which is seventeen thousand kinds of _creepy_. Why did he want me in charge?"

"Because he knew you." Hive steps closer, close enough to brush knees with Phil. It stares down at him with those curiously dead-alive eyes. "He knew you, Phillip Coulson. Every move and counter-move, every tactical advance, every strategic retreat. How to push your buttons to get what he wanted. He was a better tactician than you gave him credit for."

Phil doesn't roll his eyes. But he projects the thought that he wants to as loudly as he possibly can. "Tactics are short term. He may have been a tactician, but he was no strategist. And don't get me started on his logistics results — he couldn't have resupplied an army if his life depended on it."

"Perhaps not." And again Hive moves on, as if the subject is boring it. "Did you enact Regency Protocol?"

"I did," says Phil. "Ward didn't know me as well as he thought he did."

"He thought it was too personal. That you'd play your… what did he call it… your maverick card. Even if you were clearly unfit for duty."

 _Careful, careful…_ Phil tiptoes forward in the conversation, feeling the ground quiver under his feet. Give the creature too much information and it'll decimate them. Not enough, and it won't spill anything in return. Or it will realise it's spilling intel, which would be even worse. He takes a deliberately shaky breath. "I nearly didn't," he admits. "Hand over the reins. It was… close."

Hive studies him. "Why did you?"

Simple. "Because it's protocol." And director or not, at the end of the day he's still a SHIELD agent, governed — as they are all governed — by protocol. By rules. By law, both the letter and the spirit. Even after the shattering of everything they thought they knew, back when Hydra showed its face.

Trust the team.

Trust the system.

Of course, as director he has one small advantage in that, if he decides the system doesn't work, he can change it. Through the appropriate channels, of course. There's protocol even for that.

"Protocol," Hive says flatly.

"Yes."

"Grant Ward murdered Rosalind Price, and you handed over the reins of your beloved SHIELD to another director… because it was _protocol._ "

Phil holds his gaze, communicating _yes, that's what I said_ without so many words.

"You must have trusted… her."

His own words from weeks ago ring in his head.

 _It's not just taking me out, May. The hard part is what happens after._

Like asking her to kill him wasn't bad enough. The hypocrisy of his own words abruptly tugs at him. If the situation was reversed, he'd never be capable of doing that to her _._ Even the _thought_ of shooting May… No. Not even if she went the way of Garrett, if there was no trace of the Melinda May he cared for left in her. He'd get her out. Keep her safe. Look after her. Like she'd wanted to do with him.

 _SHIELD will need leadership. A new director. I trust you — just you — to do this._

"I do," he says.

"Melinda Qiaolian May, Agent of SHIELD. Commander. Deputy Director. The Cavalry."

"Don't call her that."

Hive glides a half-step backwards. "My apologies. She is the missing director, is she not?"

"Yes."

"For the full twenty-four hours of the Regency Protocol stand-down?"

"Yes. She handed over to Mack at the end of it at my request."

"Intriguing."

"Not really," Phil says. A thought occurs to him. "Your line of… hosts. The names you said. They were male at least as far back as Nathaniel Malick, correct?

"Yes."

"And Manzini?"

"Lord Manzini. A young English noble. Another believer, but one whose faith was… shaken. At the end."

Phil snorts. That explains a lot. "I get it."

"I'm sorry?"

"You wonder why people don't like you. Hydra."

"They will," says Hive, unmoved.

"But they don't _._ You've never wondered why?"

"Enlighten me."

"Because, it seems, not only is Hydra a bunch of racist, ableist, back-stabbing Nazis, but they're sexist as well." He leans forward as much as the restraints will let him. It's not much. "You were surprised that I would give up the leadership of SHIELD to Melinda May. Is it because she's a woman? Because her parents are Chinese? You probably think _I'm_ less effective now, too, because of the hand." He's wondered that himself, privately. If it's a weakness he can't afford. With any luck, today won't be the day he finds out.

"Nick Fury lead us for _decades_ with one eye. I'm going on a year now with one hand." Eleven months, actually. Mack cut his hand off on May 9th, 2015. Giyera took the plane on April 25th, 2016. He hopes it's still the same day. That he hasn't lost more time than he thought. "If you think May is any less capable of leading SHIELD than I am, you couldn't be more wrong. She's worth _ten_ of me."

"Perhaps," Hive allows. "Then again, perhaps not. Why do you say she was the most important director?"

Give and take, give and take. But _carefully._ "Because," Phil says, "it's the truth."

"In what way?"

"It was a… vulnerable… time. Any attack on the leadership creates waves. She bore the load when I wasn't able to. Carried us through without a hitch. Implemented a few really neat ideas while she was at it."

"She didn't turn you from your path."

 _Kill him? Ward? That's not like you._

 _That's not what this is. I don't want to kill him for what he did to Ros._

 _Don't you?_

"No," Phil says. "She didn't. But not for lack of trying."

"She was weak."

He nearly laughs at that. "Melinda May? Weak? Not even close. She was stronger than I was. What Ward did, that wasn't just personal for me. It was personal for all of us. And she was strong enough to take a step back, clear her mind, and take the helm from me before I drove us onto the rocks. She saw what needed to be done and she did it."

"And you?"

"I made a mistake." He's long since accepted that. "More than one. I let myself become obsessed with vengeance, _consumed_ by it. And I nearly lost myself in the process."

Hive nods, its face softening in something that almost looks like sympathy. And then it turns away and presses a panel on the wall. "Speaking of losing yourself…"

The panel slides up, revealing an alcove which contains two very familiar objects.

Phil's gut clenches.

Two prosthetic hands.

One, his current flesh-coloured attachment. The one Hive must have removed before clamping his arms to the chair.

And two… _no no no no no…_ the black hand, solid, clumsy. The one he left beside Grant Ward's lifeless body on Maveth. The one he used to crush the life out of his team's former specialist.

Hive reaches into the alcove and lifts the black prosthetic with something like reverence. "I want to ask you," it says softly, "about this hand."


	3. Hand

**Second Nature (** ** _Nature_** **Series #4)**

Set after _3.16: Paradise Lost_ and into the early scenes of _03.17: The Team_.

 ** _Second Nature:_** _noun; a habit or mode of behaviour so long practiced that it seems innate._

 _Thanks to LeDbrite for the heads-up on the last chapter! The correct chapter has been switched out now :) Reviews are appreciated._

* * *

3\. _Hand_

* * *

He can't persist with the friendly government mask in the face of that. _Pick your battles, Phil_. He settles on an expression of flat neutrality that would make May proud. "What about the hand?"

"How did you lose the original?"

"Would you believe my dad sliced it off? He was trying to get me join some evil world government or something, I don't know, I wasn't really listening…" Phil trails off at the look on Hive's face. "What can I say? I like Star Wars. You should know, you lived on Tatooine for long enough."

"How," Hive says, very patiently, "did you lose your original hand?"

"Don't tell me you're still convinced the leadership of SHIELD is some preordained legacy. Me losing my hand had nothing to with Victoria Hand, unofficial director or not."

"Answer the question, Coulson. If you please."

He'd better not push his luck. "One of my men cut it off. Amputated it cleanly. Through-and-through with a fire ax."

"Why?"

"Saved my life." He's not about to reveal the particular toxic combination created by terrigen crystals coming into contact with plain old non-Inhuman skin. "I gave him a promotion. And a pay raise. Stretched the budget thin for a while, but it was worth it. He's a good agent."

"And Victoria Hand?"

Where's Hive going with this? "She was also a good agent."

"Really? Because according to Grant's memories, you disagreed with nearly every decision she made."

"So what? I'm not saying we were friends, but she was a damn good agent. She knew every card in her hand and she was ruthless in playing them."

"And yet you didn't like her."

"We worked together in a professional capacity more than once."

"Personally," Hive says. "You didn't like her personally."

It won't hurt to open up a little. It's old history now. "Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead. But. No. I didn't like her personally."

"Why not?"

Phil tries to shrug and comes up short against the steel bands around his arms. "Personality clash. We had completely different work styles. We bonded with teams differently, we shared intel differently, we held different views on… just about everything, really. But it didn't stop us working together. We were mature adults. Professionals. We got the job done."

Hive taps Phil's old hand contemplatively against his palm. "There's more to it than that. Isn't there?"

"Is there?" He keeps his eyes on Ward's. Resolutely doesn't look at the old black prosthetic. He doesn't need the reminder.

"Yes."

Phil affects a sigh. But subtly. "Well. If we're dredging up old history…"

"Please do," Hive says. Phil can almost see the thread of impatience in the words.

"Ward knew I hated chess, right? The board game."

"Yes."

"Did he know why?"

Hive pauses. "No."

"Victoria Hand," says Phil. "Is why I hate chess."

Hive tilts its head. "Really?"

"Yeah. I used to like chess. Used to be good at it, even — really good. And then she came along. We played every night for two weeks straight, sounding each other out, learning each other's strategies and techniques. I won some and lost some. We were more or less even. I didn't like her even then, just didn't click with her, but but she was a good opponent. A good rival."

"What happened?"

"She got cocky. Pulled out all the stops, gathered a room full of people, and challenged me publicly."

"And?"

"She won," he says. "She beat me at chess. Three times in a row. In a room full of junior agents. And she crowed about it. For _weeks._ "

"And you? What did you do?"

"I took it as gracefully as I could, considering the circumstances. But I stopped playing chess. I learnt more about her in that one night than in the entire two weeks of matches before that."

Hive turns on the spot to look at Phil, eyes piercing. "What did you learn?"

 _Sorry, Victoria._ "Arrogance," he says. "I admire anyone for competency. Being good at something and knowing _exactly_ how good you are? Fine. But arrogance? Thinking you're better than you actually are, that you're better than someone else, that you don't need to listen and learn? No. Arrogance gets people killed — good people. And she was arrogant. Ruthless and smart and efficient, and arrogant. She'd sacrifice a team for the sake of the mission, no questions asked."

"And you?"

"No."

Hive nods. "You'd sacrifice the mission for the sake of the team."

"I'd find a way to get both."

"Yes. You would, wouldn't you? And you'd sacrifice yourself for the same objective."

"If it came down to it," Phil says. "Yes."

"Why?"

How can he explain it? "I gave my life for SHIELD. Literally. And I was given a second chance." The full explanation is tangled up inside him, a complicated morass of faith and pain and hope and desperation and cold determination. The short version is… easier. "It's only fair to extend that chance to others. No matter the personal cost to me."

"Your team," Hive says. "Your family."

They're in deep water now. "How many people did Grant Ward trust?"

Hive looks at him and doesn't answer.

"Exactly," Phil says. "Take that and multiply it by how much longer I've been in the agency, by how many more friends I've seen die, how many I couldn't save, how many more people I thought were friends who I've been _betrayed_ by. And then I find the very few people I _can_ trust, the few I click with like we've been together our whole lives — is it any wonder I'd die for them?"

"Perhaps not. Your lives are so short anyway. Throwing away a few decades of your own life in a futile attempt to prolong theirs… I can see how that would be important to you."

Well. Phil wouldn't go _that_ far. But he knows poor interrogation psychology when he hears it. "A word of warning for you."

Hive stills, prosthesis still in hand. "I'm listening."

"Every agent in the business… we took an oath. To be the shield. The last line of defence. To step in front of the bullet heading for humanity, to do everything we possibly can to save earth. Not just our loved ones. Everyone. But you should know: everyone has someone they'll do that for. Agent, civilian, whatever. It doesn't matter. No-one is alone. Wherever you go, whoever you join forces with, whatever your objective here is? There will always be someone to oppose you. Seven billion people, all willing to die — or kill — to stop you. Because everybody loves someone, and everybody will do _whatever it takes_ to keep that someone safe."

"Would you?"

"Yes. I have. And I would again."

Hive mulls that over for a few seconds. "Why did you leave the hand behind?"

Phil blinks. "What?"

"On Maveth," says Hive. "You killed Grant Ward and then you left your prosthetic hand behind. It's a marvellous piece of workmanship," it adds, turning the hand over in its palm and studying it. "Truly a stunning work of art and science. Rough, of course. An early prototype. I see you've upgraded to something far more elegant."

"A more civilised weapon for a less civilised age. Yeah."

"It can't have been cheap to replace."

"I have a very good engineer on our books. More than one, actually. They work better in a team."

The creature turns to face Phil front-on. When it speaks, its voice is deadly quiet. "Will you tell me why you deliberately left it behind, or would you like me to guess?"

"Please," says Phil. "Be my guest."

"Very well." Hive holds Phil's gaze and lifts the prosthetic. "You followed Grant to Maveth, hell-bent on extracting your vengeance for the death of Rosalind Price."

"Among other things. Like the torture of Bobbi Morse. Daisy Johnson's abduction. The attempted murders of Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz. Lance Hunter. Andrew Garner. Melinda May." If it really had been May that Ward had shot, and not just Kara Palamas wearing May's face… Phil's veins run cold. Nobody could come back from a triple gut-shot at point-blank range. Not even Melinda May, indomitable as she is. "I could go on, but you get the idea."

"Ms. Price was the catalyst."

He can't deny that. "Ros's death. Yes."

"The driving force."

"Yes."

"You shot him once on the way to the extraction point, but in the side, not fatally, because at that point you still hadn't quite decided what to do to him. You shot him again when you were almost at the exit. In the shoulder. He barely reacted. Didn't you wonder why?"

Phil nearly catches his breath. Surely not — is Hive saying — ?

"He tried to take you out, of course. You fought. Brawled, really. In the cold sand under the everlasting night of my planet."

Cool air fills his senses, thinner than the air on earth; coarse sand under his fingers, blue twilight all around. He fights back a shiver.

"And then the portal opened. You had to go. But you couldn't leave Grant alive."

Phil drags in air that feels too thin, too cold, and holds that alien gaze.

"You crushed his chest cavity," says Hive. The words are almost emotionless. "You looked him in the eye and bore down until his ribs cracked and broke, his breastbone gave way, his lungs collapsed. The light faded from his eyes. And he died. By your hand."

— _sea and sand and lying under restraints on the cold steel of an operating table, knives digging into his neural synapses, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing, steady weight pressing him down and down and down, let me die let me die let me —_

"The same hand," Hive adds, "which you subsequently removed. And dropped. You left it lying beside Grant Ward's lifeless body, and you walked away. Back to earth. Back to your team. Like nothing had ever happened."

"You're wrong," Phil rasps. Just ask May, who wakes him from nightmares about it even now. Everything changed on Maveth. _Everything._

"I know. It scared you."

He doesn't reply.

"What you became in that moment. It terrified you."

"How do you…?"

"You've killed people before. Shot them. Stabbed them. Snapped their necks in the heat of battle. But to drain a man's life with your own hand, to feel the life go out inside him… as you did with Grant. With me. The _look_ in your eyes…" Hive shakes its head. "A feeling so powerful it scared you — enough for you to leave that hand behind."

He'd thought Ward was still himself, on Maveth. But Phil has to wonder now, behind the frozen mask of indifference, if Hive had taken the opportunity of transferring bodies earlier than he guessed. If Ward had been under the sway of the demon even before Phil killed him.

Murdered him.

But no. That couldn't be right, could it?

He digs in his memory, frantically calling up the nightmare of blue light and blistering sand and that biting, ice-cold wind. No, that couldn't be right. Fitz had been fighting Will Daniels — except it hadn't been Will Daniels. The Will Daniels zombie under the control of Hive. Fitz fought it, Phil helped out with a couple of judiciously placed bullets at high speed, and Fitz finished it off with the flare gun.

Phil had watched Ward almost the whole time. He didn't remember the smallest change in body language, the slightest hint of anything alien in Ward's eyes. There had been pain, yes. Wild rage. Lurking confusion at his so-clearly impending demise. And yet… there had also been a strange sort of satisfaction, almost something like triumph.

No.

No, no, no, that's what it was.

Conviction.

Phil could kick himself for being so slow.

Conviction. Purpose. Burning certainty.

Ward had seen the city. He'd found his belief.

And then, so close to Hive, he'd died.

At the time, Phil had labelled it as nothing short of the most complete irony. That Ward had failed so close to his target. So close to what seemed to be his life's sole objective. He'd fallen without knowing that Hive was _right there._

But now…

Now, Phil can only wonder. He doesn't believe in predestination. But he's known for a long time that there are forces at work in the world far beyond anything he could ever dream of.

Even in his worst nightmares.

Hive is still waiting for an answer.

"Ward was my team's specialist," Phil says after a minute. "My responsibility. Everything he did… that's on me."

"I'm sure there are those would disagree with your assessment of the situation."

"Probably. They can take it up with me in person."

"You feel that everything to do with Grant is your responsibility. Including his death."

"Including his murder. Yes." He can't explain why the terminology means so much to him. But it does. "I've killed people before."

"But not like this."

"No," Phil says to the undead body of the guy he murdered. "Not like this."

"Do you regret what you did?"

How is he supposed to answer that when he doesn't even know himself? "I regret the motivation behind it. It may have been the right move. I think it was. But the reasons… the reasons were all wrong. Petty. Personal. Selfish. In the end I didn't terminate Ward for the good of humanity. I murdered him out of hatred."

Ward's words on Maveth ring in his ears. _I've been where you are now. Filled with rage. Wanting revenge. I chose HYDRA for petty, personal, selfish reasons. For a father figure. For vengeance. For closure. But what I saw today gave my life meaning._

 _Meaning._ Somehow Phil doesn't think playing host to a parasitic demon was quite what he had in mind.

Hive nods thoughtfully. Taps the hand against his palm again. "Do you still deny the connection?"

"Your so-called connection between me losing my hand and Victoria Hand being a former _de facto_ director of SHIELD?" Phil asks. "Absolutely. It's a stretch to even call it a coincidence. Random sequences of events don't make a plot."

"Very well." It shrugs, a lithe movement of presumably pain-free shoulders that makes Phil want to scream. Or hit someone. Preferably the _thing_ in front of him.

He's not as young as he once was. And sitting on a metal chair is far less comfortable than it sounds, especially with his arms clamped in metal braces behind him.

His shoulders are killing him.

"Then," says Hive, "let's talk about Fury."


	4. Fury

**Second Nature (** ** _Nature_** **Series #4)**

Set after _3.16: Paradise Lost_ and into the early scenes of _03.17: The Team_.

 ** _Second Nature:_** _noun; a habit or mode of behaviour so long practiced that it seems innate._

* * *

 _4\. Fury_

* * *

"Nick Fury?" Phil asks. "Last official Director of SHIELD before me? He was my Supervising Officer. And a good friend."

"You refuse to see the connection between yourself and Hand. Perhaps you'll see the connection between yourself and Fury."

"Like I said. He was my S.O. That's a pretty clear connection, but it doesn't mean me becoming director was predetermined."

"Fury," Hive says, and this time Phil's almost certain there's only a small f to the word. "The emotion. The _rage_ locked away deep inside you where you think nobody can see it."

Phil blinks at it, expression composed of equal parts polite amiability and vague bafflement. "You know, much like the fact that a lot of people have lost a hand, a lot of people feel anger. At some point. Over the course of their life. Some people even feel it more than once. Hard to believe, I know. You'll just have to take my word for it."

Hive sighs and turns away. Phil watches with hungry eyes as the prosthetic hand goes back beside his current one and the wall panel slides across again, hiding it from sight. "What did you feel when you killed Grant Ward?"

"Exhausted. It was a long week."

"Fury," says Hive, ignoring Phil's reply. "You felt nothing less than pure fury."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, yes." Something perilously close to a smile stretches Ward's mouth.

"How do you know?"

"Let me," it says, "show you."

Hive glides closer on silent feet, stopping close to Phil. Far too close, if Phil's honest: the skin at the back of his neck prickles with renewed force, tiny hairs standing on end. He doesn't need the reminder that, no matter how human the creature looks, the reality is far different.

And then Hive reaches for the buttons on Phil's shirt.

 _What._

It takes everything he has to _not react_ , to sit frozen and still and expressionless while Ward's hands on Ward's body guided by _not_ -Ward unbutton his shirt, moving from collar to hem with detached efficiency. It peels the sides back, revealing Phil's pale bare chest.

Revealing the scar.

Hive retreats again, hands going to its own clothes. In another minute it's shrugged out of the dark coat and shirt, leaving both of them bare-chested in the cool of the room.

Phil can hardly bring himself to look. But he doesn't have a choice. Ward's chest is right there.

As it turns out… he frowns… there's nothing. No bruising. No splintered ribs poking through the skin. Just bare, unblemished skin.

Hive takes a slow, deep breath, chest rising and falling.

The flawless skin ripples and falls away, an illusion breaking free, showing the true extent of the damage underneath.

Phil doesn't want to look at the bullet holes where he shot Ward: one in the lower left side, one in the upper right shoulder. At the sallow, distended belly. At the distorted lines of broken ribs, the spider-web of cracks in the right quadrant, the skin that clings too tight to every protrusion of clavicle and ribcage.

And — more damning than anything else— at the bruised black shadow of a handprint over Ward's crushed sternum.

But he does look.

He memorises.

This is his handiwork. Literally.

This is where he crossed the line. The line he never should have even _thought_ about crossing.

If the time has come to pay his penance…

… _forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us…_

Then that's what he'll do.

 _…_ _deliver us from evil. For Yours is the Kingdom…_

"You see?" Hive says, gesturing to itself and then to the scar bisecting Phil's chest. "We're alike, you and I. And I think you cannot now say that you don't feel fury."

"I never said I don't feel fury."

"So you do?"

"Yes."

"And you did?"

"When I murdered Ward?"

"Yes."

"No." He's thought about this long and hard. What happened on Maveth shook him to the core. In some ways — in many ways, even now — he can't explain what happened there. But he knows it wasn't _fury_ that he felt. "Not fury. Hatred."

Hive blinks. "An interesting distinction."

"Is it? In any case, it blows your theory out of the water. Again."

Hive shakes its head in disappointment. "No, no. Fury." It gestures to its chest again. The skin ripples and is once again whole. "Hand." It waves to the alcove in the wall. "You're really going to try and deny their connections to you?"

"You still missed — "

"Melinda May is important. Not just to you, but to the lineage of your directors. What month were you born in?"

"July," Phil says flatly.

The creature looks at him. Through him. "Ah," it says.

"What?"

"It's not for you. It's for someone who comes after you."

Okay, that's just _beyond_ creepy. Phil lifts an incredulous eyebrow. "You know who's going to be director after me?"

"Everybody knows who's going to be director after you, Coulson." It shrugs into its coat, eyes cold. "Why do you think I didn't mention May the first time?"

Phil shakes his head.

"Because," says Hive, "she hasn't finished yet." It steps closer. "She was there when you began as director. And she will be there when you end."

It doesn't sound so much like a threat as a promise. Phil lifts his chin. It seems his time might be up. "Then the only thing I have to say is that she has my unreserved blessing. She'll be one hell of a great director."

"Is that so."

"Yes."

"No final questions?"

"I don't suppose you'd accept _you can't kill me, I'm like you_?"

Hive's eyes glitter. "You wouldn't be the first director of SHIELD to fall to my sword."

"You have a sword?" Phil flashes a mocking grin. "Bro. Awesome. Actually, one question. My team would kill me if I didn't ask."

"Yes?"

"Hydra's motto. _Cut off one _, two more shall take its place._ Was it _head_ or _limb_?"

Hive eyes him. "That's your question?"

"Yeah. I first stumbled across it at college related to some old SHIELD stuff. It's been annoying me for decades."

"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. The answer, Director Coulson, is _both._ " Hive twitches. Its head… changes.

Oh, yuck. That is, frankly, revolting.

It changes back, and is Grant Ward once more.

"Well," says Phil faintly. "That explains a lot."

"I'm glad."

"Really?"

"At least as far as I feel gladness. Or any emotion. Yes. I'm glad I could answer your question. Let you pass on in peace."

It glides to stand in front of Phil, close enough to touch.

"Look," Phil says calmly, "I have people I need to say goodbye to, would you just — ?"

"No. You of all people should know it doesn't work like that." It extends a lean forefinger to trace the scar on his chest. The touch is ice-cold. "Life is short. Messy. You know this, Coulson. You know that if you had anything important to say… you should have already said it."

He does know that. Dying has a way of making you realise that there's no point leaving things unsaid. His heart shudders inside him. He doesn't want to die. Nobody should _want_ to die.

But if this is his end, after all the chances he's been given, the lives he's lead, the family he's formed? Then he'll accept it and be thankful.

At least Hive doesn't look like stabbing him in the back.

"Last question," he says. "I promise." His dad always said insatiable curiosity was a good trait for a historian.

Hive almost looks annoyed. "What?"

"Fury. Hand. Coulson. May. You said they're all connected."

"Yes?"

"Where do I fit into it? Coulson. That's not an amputated limb or a birth month or a common, albeit extreme, emotion. How does that fit into your theory?"

"It's not for you. It's for those who come after."

"Like May, okay, I get it, but _how?_ "

The corner of Hive's mouth lifts a fraction. It ducks its head. Its voice, when it comes, is so low that Phil has to strain to hear. "Coulson. Son of Coul."

Phil catches his breath.

"Or daughter, perhaps. The original name was gender-neutral. But then… you knew that."

He stares up at Hive, eyes widening despite himself. May. Son of Coul. More than one member of his team — his _family —_ was born in May. More than one could be called son or daughter.

And all teams are fluid. They lose some, they gain some. There's no guarantee that any member of his team now will still be around when it comes time for May to hand over the reins.

But all the same…

He doesn't believe it, he _doesn't,_ it's bad intel, he can't trust a demonic _thing_ with Ward's face, but all the same…

His heart's hammering out of his chest. Threatening to burst the lines of scarring down his breastbone.

Son of Coul.

 _Child_ of Coul.

"Does that reassure you?" Hive asks.

Phil stares into those dark, dispassionate eyes. And maybe there is a connection there, because he can't bring himself to lie. "Yes," he says hoarsely.

For all that he's spent the last thirty years as a spy, he doesn't want his last words to be false.

Truth matters. More than ever.

Hive brings its hands up to cradle Phil's face. Its grip is firm, but not painful.

The words spill without conscious thought from his mouth. "You're going to lose." As last words go, they're not bad. He supposes they'll have an added gravitas for being his last words _twice._

"Am I?"

"It's in your nature." The creature might be a fallen angel, a demon, but even the Devil himself was created by something. Someone. There's always a bigger… "You lack conviction."

"That," says Hive, "is one thing I do _not_ lack."

The grip tightens, forcing Phil's mouth open.

He breathes, and finds a certain comfort in the inhale-exhale of air.

Hive opens its mouth —

And jerks its head up, staring past Phil with a frown.

It blinks.

And closes its mouth. Drops its hands. Steps back. Smoothes a wrinkle out of its coat.

"Excuse me," it says. "I'm needed elsewhere."

It strides past Phil with quiet footsteps. A door opens and closes.

Phil slumps, breathing hard. A quick check over his shoulder proves that, yes, the room really is empty. Hive's gone. But probably not for long.

He'll need to act fast.

He pulls up the self-extraction plan from the back of his mind, where it's been quietly ticking away for the duration of the conversation. Twists to get at the band clamped around his left bicep. He might not be flexible enough for advanced yoga, but a decade with Clint and his ridiculous gymnastics taught him a few things. He's more than flexible enough for this.

A quick lick down the length of the band, neck muscles screaming where the torsion pulls at his trapezius and fascia, and then a careful five-second wait, ears straining for the least hint of reaction between the metal and his saliva.

Nothing.

Good.

Using his tongue, he counts two in from the end on the lower left side of his mouth. Finds the seal. Cracks it with a sudden sharp movement. Cyanide's old-school, and it would work okay for this, but thankfully Fitz had some better ideas. He takes the hidden capsule between his teeth, pulls his lips well back and — there's a technique to it, but he's a little out of practice — breaks it open, letting the acid dribble out of his mouth onto the metal.

It works fast. After four seconds, the metal is thin enough that tensing his bicep breaks it open the rest of the way. He pulls his arm free, ignoring the sting of spilled droplets burning through his shirt sleeve, and stifles a relieved groan as muscles held still for too long stretch and contract. That's much better.

Now. The stump by itself is more or less useless, but it's a good first step. If he can just get to his hand…

He shifts his weight experimentally. Hmm. The chair isn't light — duh, it's solid metal — but it's doable. Even with his shins strapped to the chair legs. Hive clearly didn't think to weld it to the floor.

Amateur.

He rocks his weight back and throws himself forward. Catches himself on his toes, teeters, shifts and shifts again until the chair is square at his back. Got it. Ten steps, quick and careful, take him the five metres to the wall where Hive shut his hands away.

Try as he might, he can't see the seams where the panel closed.

Phil sets his teeth against the weight on his back and brings his stump up, probing the area with the edge of the port. Nothing. Nothing. The impact against the port rim isn't enough to hurt, but every so often it jars, sending a strange shivering up the interface to his very human nervous system. Come on, come on…

Wait. He backtracks a couple of inches. Leans his head closer, listening.

And grins.

There.

Another few taps and the panel slides open. _Hello._ All it takes to reattach the latest prosthesis is a thrust and a twist. The days of needing his one remaining hand, plus May's two, plus a good half-hour of adjustment and calibration are long gone.

With the augmented strength of the cybernetic hand, the rest is easy. He rips open the metal cuffs that shackle his legs, and then the bands around his right bicep and forearm. The chair falls with a clatter behind him.

Even after eleven months, he can't quite stop the instinctive rub around the band where the prosthesis joins his arm.

Just like he can't stop his gaze returning to the black prosthetic in the alcove.

He takes a moment to look at it, to really _see_ it, to feel the lingering hatred and the revulsion and the horror at what, exactly, he'd turned out to be capable of after all.

And then he slaps the panel shut and turns away.

Time to go.

He's nearly at the door when he pauses. That's… new. There's a slight hint of air movement brushing against his cheek. But the door is closed.

Air circulation in a closed room?

He licks the tip of his finger and holds it up, checking. Yep. That's a breeze, alright.

There's an air vent somewhere.

That could be his ticket out of here.

Phil tips his head back, studying the ceiling. No signs of a vent. But if it's as well camouflaged as the wall panel was…

There's an easy fix. The old ways are great, but so are the new ways. He brings up the X-ray projection beam on his hand and sweeps it overhead in the first row of a grid pattern. One pass. Two. Three. Four. There. Yay for more bad-guy cliches: the tunnels are big enough for him to worm his way through. Barely.

He still can't see the seams of the panel with his naked eye, but he doesn't have to. The x-ray shows them clear as daylight.

The ceiling is high. Too high to jump from ground level. He drags the chair over and climbs onto it. Checks the positioning of the vent one last time before shutting down the projector.

He leaps, digs his fingers into the barely-there grooves of the panel, and clings for his life. The twist of his foot as he jumps sends the chair skittering across the floor, back to its original position in the centre of the room. It's the work of moments to tug the panel open, swing himself up into the vent with an ease that would make Natasha proud, and close the panel behind him.

He doesn't need a visual to know that the room below him is exactly as it was when Hive left, except for the pardonable absence of one Phil Coulson and his prosthetic hand.

A quick check of the GPS in his hand shows a) he's still at the oilfield where Giyera landed them, and b) the Zephyr is grounded only a few hundred metres away. He moves.

x

Mack lets him in with a relieved sigh when he knocks on the door of the Zephyr's safe room. "Thought you'd never get here, sir."

"Got held up," Phil says, dusting himself off. "We're still surrounded, I had to come the long way. Sorry."

Mack twitches a meaningful look over his shoulder to where May is slumped against the back wall, bloody and bruised, while Fitz and Simmons hover like a couple of concerned chicks.

Phil blinks.

Mack nods. Indicates the screen on the wall with a single raised finger. Darts a glance back to May and grimaces.

Damn. He's in for it now. "Thanks for the heads up."

"You got it."

"How far…?"

"This far. We think. Fitz blocked the signal as best he could. It might have made it through to a couple of the home servers, but that's all."

That's a weight off his mind. Phil winds his way past the stacks of supplies and crouches down beside May. Fitz and Simmons take one look at May's increasingly pissed-off expression and beat a hasty retreat.

"How bad are you hurt?" Phil asks. The triage assessment is automatic; he rolls up his sleeves, probes the gash down her cheekbone with gentle fingers, and reaches for the gauze kit. She's almost bled through the first layer of bandaging on her arm. His doctoring skills aren't nearly as neat as Jemma's, but they'll do.

May hisses at the first real bit of pressure. For someone as experienced in pain management as she is, that's not a good sign.

"I've had worse," she says through gritted teeth.

"So have I. Answer the question."

She meets his eyes. Jerks her head in a silent negative.

Not good. Okay. And the fact that she's admitting it… not to the team, maybe, but to him…

Somewhere outside the bunker, an explosion rocks the plane.

"Glad you could make it," she says. There's a weight to the words he wouldn't have noticed two years ago. Or maybe the weight wouldn't have been there two years ago. Hard to tell.

He doesn't look up from wrapping gauze around her arm. "You heard, huh?"

"Yeah. Phil."

"It's nothing I wouldn't have said to your face, you know."

" _Phil._ " She tangles a shaking hand in his shirt and yanks him closer.

He lifts his gaze, strangely reluctant to meet her eyes. At the other end of the room, Mack, Fitz and Simmons are doing the tactful thing and pretending they're spontaneously deaf.

"I," she says, eyes blazing, "am not worth ten of you. And you are not worth ten of me."

"I had to keep him talking."

"We're worth one. Of each other. Different skillsets, equal value. Got it?"

"Yeah."

Her grip tightens. " _Is that understood?_ "

"Understood," he says, even as the thought crosses his mind that she's possibly the only person in the entire world who could get away with using those words on him in that tone.

 _You're the man in charge, but I'm in charge of you, remember?_

"I know." He softens his voice. "Melinda. Believe me. I know my worth. And yours."

"Good." She lets him go. Her head settles back against the wall with a _thunk_ , sweat gleaming on her temples. "Bandage is a bit loose. Yeah, that's better. Thanks. And my ankle itches like crazy. Would you mind?"


End file.
